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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Consumer confidence among Floridians remained unchanged this month, but a sharp drop in perceptions about whether it is a good time to buy big-ticket items may foreshadow a lackluster holiday retail season for the second year in a row, University of Florida economists report.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A team of University of Florida and Columbia University scientists will probe the genetic underpinnings of nerve cells, including those responsible for learning and memory, through research on a common sea slug with a very uncommon brain.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Amazon, that massive rain forest that evokes images of primordial jungle and nomadic tribes, once supported settlements of thousands of people who lived in villages connected by an ancient version of interstates and interspersed with fields, moats and bridges.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A billion years ago, the ancestors of today’s bacteria thrived in an environment similar to a Yellowstone hot spring, suggesting Earth may have been a much warmer place closer to the time when life originated.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – UF scientists have scored another first in a string of advances using stem cells, this time showing they can inject mice with adult stem cells from human blood and spur human blood vessels to grow in their eyes.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Most modern homes have an automatic thermostat, and now a University of Florida researcher's new study shows the mysterious mechanism that maintains body temperature may work in similar fashion: with the help of a heat-regulating "switch."

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — UF, together with a consortium of five other Southeastern universities, will share a five-year, $45 million federal grant to combat bioterrorism threats such as smallpox and emerging diseases such as SARS, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced today.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Federal hurricane forecasters and emergency managers had an unprecedented up-close, real-time view of Hurricane Isabel’s windy fury as the storm moved ashore last week, thanks in part to four mobile weather towers operated by the University of Florida and Clemson University.

By: Daniel A. Smith
Daniel A. Smith, associate professor of political science at the University of Florida, is the author, with Caroline J. Tobert, of the forthcoming Educated by Initiative: The Effects of Direct Democracy on Citizens and Political Organizations in the American States, to be published by University of Michigan Press next year.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — New insight into how estrogen works may lead to better treatments for stroke patients, say researchers with the University of Florida’s Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute.